Bay de Verde residents come together in prayer, prepare to move on

About 100 people from Bay de Verde attended an interdenominational prayer service in the town on Wednesday, two days after a fire razed the area's main employer.

• Bay de Verde fire: Mayor, plant workers ponder town's future in fire's aftermath
• Quinlan Brothers to rebuild 'bigger and better than ever' in Bay de Verde

Firefighters were given a standing ovation as they piled into the service, which was dedicated to the volunteers who responded while fire raged at the Quinlan Brothers fish plant on Monday.

The congregation was told to be thankful that no one was injured, that Quinlan Brothers has pledged to rebuild, and for the firefighters who responded.

"It's devastating. I've been working with the company, this year would be my 40th season," said Margaret Riggs outside St. Barnabas Church. "It's the only life I ever knew, it's the only job I ever had."

Some of the 700 workers employed at the Bay de Verde plant have been told they will get work in other plants, in Winterton for example, and Brigus.

Riggs will be heading to Brigus, an hour-and-a-half down the highway, starting work again on Wednesday evening.

"It's not only losing your work. Our family now is separated," she said. "All you can do now is move ahead and hope that this is only for a short period of time."

"And hope, if God is good, that next year we will be back home again."

The impact of the fish plant's destruction extends much further than Bay de Verde itself. People from all over Newfoundland and Labrador worked at the plant, which was one of the biggest in the province.

"It was devastating news for everyone, because there's so many people involved with it," said Dale Kennedy, the skipper of the Cape Aaron.

"Right from us right down to the the plant workers and the truck drivers and everybody."

Kennedy, a crab fisherman, said he expects to keep operating his business and supplying the Quinlan Brothers and their other processing plants.

He's also confident in their pledge to rebuild.

"If anyone can get through this, they're the people," he said.

Quinlan Brothers founder Pat Quinlan, now 86, visited Bay de Verde on Wednesday. He said he's committed to the town that was his mother's home.

"Do anyone honestly know how much this has hit Quinlan Brothers? I mean, they are devastated," added Betty Layman. "This little town had a plant that Mr. Quinlan built in 1954."

"To see this ruins, it had to break his heart."